But your quite mistaken view, on that occasion, arose from an incorrect estimate of values.

I paid one pound, six shillings and three-pence for the two seats, and three pounds, eighteen and nine-pence for the pleasure of sitting alone with my wife, and thought it cheap at that.

It was a far lower price than the actual need demanded; therefore, by your own showing, it was not extravagant." "Oh, what a boy it is!" sighed Helen, with a little gesture of despair.
"Then, last Christmas, Ronnie, you insisted upon feting the old people with all kinds of unnecessary luxuries.

They had always been quite content with wholesome bread-and-butter, plum cake, and nice hot tea.
They did not require _pate de foie gras_ and champagne, nor did they understand or really enjoy them.

One old lady, in considerable distress, confided to me the fact that the champagne tasted to her 'like physic with a fizzle in it.' It made most of them ill, Ronnie, and cost at least eight times as much as my simple Christmas parties of other years.
So don't go and spend an unnecessary sum on an elaborate, and probably less useful, instrument.